Introduction

This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part considers the origins of personal and collective anxieties which shape the desire of people in modern societies to feel safe and insulated from the differences 'out there'. It suggests greater concern for both the methodologies and theories that are used to record and analyse cultural forms and processes. The part is concerned with mapping some of these new, culturally inspired ways of thinking about space and social identity. Understanding the relationship between human society and space is one of the most central and long-standing concerns of human geographers. Explorations of the geography and culture of subjectivity, selfhood and the body frequently employ metaphors of the map and mapping. Indeed, the cultural and spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities has given mapping metaphors and practices a revitalized currency beyond their traditional domain of cartography and geography.